


Sentiment

by annanWaters



Category: Atomic Blonde (2017)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Canon Bisexual Character, Character Study, F/F, Fix-It of Sorts, Flashbacks, Lies, Post-Canon, Spies, Unbury Your Gays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 16:31:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annanWaters/pseuds/annanWaters
Summary: "Berlin. The way her face had looked, eyes wide and staring. That memory was never going anywhere. It had been hard, and ugly, and her job, and she'd done it. She could live with that. Even when it wasn't easy."A character study, after the Wall came down.





	Sentiment

The timer rang and she dropped out of plank position, rolling past her right shoulder and almost onto her back. She stretched her right arm out straight from the shoulder and fixed her legs and the set of her hips, ready to rise up into jackknife lifts; turning her chin to meet the mat, though, her breath stopped. Arm flung out in front of her. Body rocked back.

Another room hung around her, the sweat on her forehead gone clammy as her throat fought for air. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, letting her body work through it, giving her heart and lungs a chance to remember how to work. Giving herself a chance to remember where she was. The timer rang again and she slowly lifted into the jackknife, arm set correctly, leg rising, obliques tightening, muscles pulling her back to the present.

Everyone had one that stayed with them: it seemed Berlin would be hers. She'd done harder, uglier things, but that was the one that wouldn't fade. Listening to the sirens and silences from that floor in West Berlin, broken things strewn across the room. Her included.

She finished the set, flipped with the timer and started on the other side, letting the memory jangle her nerves and twitch her muscles. Berlin. The way her face had looked, eyes wide and staring. That memory was never going anywhere. It had been hard, and ugly, and her job, and she'd done it. She could live with that. Even when it wasn't easy.

Word on the street, at least, was that Broughton had gotten her own back at Percival. Perhaps it was sentimental to think that she'd done it for her, but maybe she had, a little. She hadn't counted on that, making the phone call, going limp beneath him, but she couldn't say she'd ruled it out, either. The timer rang one last time and she pushed herself upright, dragging sweaty hair away from her face on her way to the shower. The brown eyes in the mirror as she passed were Delphine's, and they weren't; they belonged to Olympe, now. Olympe de Lorraine, and that was sentimental, too, but she was, a little.

Delphine had been easy to wear in some ways; she'd rested on her like an oversized sweater, only rubbing a little. Two truths and a lie: "I got into this because it was exciting," "I've only been in Berlin a year," "this is my first assignment with the French intelligence." Berlin was a reward for Algiers and Sarajevo, where a girl with a knack for languages and a good tan could be useful. Broughton and Percival had thought her impossibly naive-- so quick, so clear, so obvious. They were right.

She wiped steam off the mirror with the towel, running her fingers through the hair stacked high off of her neck, so much shorter than she'd had it before, tugging at the strands that reached to her chin. It had been touch and go, that night in Berlin. She'd lain on that floor, fading in and out but aware, lungs desperate as Broughton stormed into the place, that she had to keep still. There had been a bad moment when she'd been terrified that Broughton would touch her, check for a pulse, or even that she would realize how closely she'd followed Percival and attempt resuscitation. Olympe wasn't sure she should call it luck, but Broughton's condition-- exhausted, badly injured, concussed, and probably half drunk-- had kept her from thinking or seeing too clearly. Providence, perhaps, but not luck.

To suspect that her emotional state had been affected, too, that her angry curse at seeing Delphine's body had been more than frustration, was probably sentimental. Lying on that floor hadn't been the hardest, or the ugliest, thing she'd ever done. Watching Lorraine huddle, shuddering, against her wall and doing nothing, though, had stayed in a way that the harder things hadn't. It had broken her heart to do it-- Delphine's quick, naive, obvious heart-- but she'd lain on that floor with her eyes open until Broughton had found the envelope and fled out into the splendored night.

Olympe thought that she'd probably still been in love at the time. Delphine had fallen for Lorraine, the way she did with every woman and none of the men she slept with. It usually wore off after a week, but something about Berlin-- that unequal parting-- ached like an old wound. It wasn't her conscience that was bruised, it was her sense of symmetry: she'd seen Broughton tell the truth, but left her with a lie. Perhaps that was why Berlin didn't want to fade with the rest of them. A hangover of sorts. The only cure, she supposed, was time.

Perhaps it had been that naiveté of Delphine's that had led Broughton to choose Paris for her final rendezvous with Bremovych. Perhaps she'd felt confident enough that French intelligence could be discounted, if Delphine was any example, to tie off her loose end right there in the capital. American arrogance could certainly have accounted for it. Broughton had been so focused, a joy to behold as she strode toward her objective, but had taken no notice of the steetwalker lolling against the facade as she made her way into the hotel. It was perhaps too sentimental to think that Paris, too, had been for Delphine, a little. Not at that remove, vengeance done and the body long cold. Perhaps it had been Bremovych's idea.

Olympe fixed her makeup: none of Delphine's dramatics, a nude lip and a warm eyeliner that matched her sweater and her student's satchel. The last anyone had heard of Lorraine Broughton, she was on a leave of absence from her office in London. The last anyone had heard of the double agent was the night before Percival had died in Berlin. Rumors abounded about the List, but no one had any actionable intelligence about it, either. Buckling her shoes, Olympe spared a thought for the poor English bastards still sweating its whereabouts.

Down three narrow flights she stepped into the muted beauty of Paris in early spring, squalls chasing the last of the winter gloom away, and headed for a certain cafe. A group of shaggy young dreamers and sharp-eyed thinkers liked to meet there for long lunches and late coffees, claiming the couches and tables under a handwritten sign: _le rendez-vous des Poetes_. They traded in manuscript pages and photographs and sketches, in screenplays and manifestos and rough drafts. This blustery watercolor Thursday, she finally had something to share.


End file.
